


Marital Privilege

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:10:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel wants to do more than play the part. Set sometime in season five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marital Privilege

Five planets later, and they've probably gotten the bounty hunters off their tail and are somewhere that the Tok'ra can find them, but have landed in Asaros.

Daniel's heart sank into a deep pit of dread when he took one glance around and realized two things.

One, that the culture was very ancient Athens and two, that the culture was *very* ancient Athens, and not in a positive way. There were nearly no women in the bustling market around the gate, or on the road to the nearest city. In fact, the only one Daniel saw was quite clearly a slave. Apparently the ancient Athenian custom of keeping women inside the house as much as possible had followed the Asarians through the 'gate.

Sam didn't notice it until Daniel pointed it out to her, and it struck Daniel that there was a very good reason for that. She works and lives in a world of men, and it's nothing for her to see twenty men for every woman at Cheyenne Mountain. So when she sees nothing but the stoic faces of men with disapproving eyes, it's just like home for her.

But this is no time to meditate on the ironies of gender roles at home and abroad.

"It might help if you covered your head," Daniel says to her, and the look on Sam's face makes him flinch.

The fact that she digs through her pack, finds a bandanna and covers her head, without a huff or a speech makes him flinch deeper and harder. The 'gate comes with a price, and after everything, Daniel isn't going to begrudge her a little loss of faith in the things she was once so utterly adamant about.

"It'll have to do," she says, with a brief smile on her face. Daniel wishes it could make him feel better that she smiled, but it doesn't. The thought of Sam becoming one of these women, even as a cover - stuck in a house, submissive and shamed into hiding themselves - makes something combative spark in him.

Something not at all scholarly. Something rooted farther from his brain than he wants to admit. Something that is entirely sure than no matter what planet he's on, Sam rates above any other person there. He wants to shake all those rookie marines who come in and think that they can dismiss her and don't realize that she is smarter, stronger, better than they could hope to be.

Daniel spends the trip making up the most plausible cover story, which is that they are foreigners, which is true. And that they are married, which is not true. But he and Sam will, inevitably take liberties with each other. Sam will argue, explain, take a strong voice with him. Something that the Asarians will no doubt find unacceptable in any other context, but for all their customs, marriage tends to have a consistent flavor across the galaxy. Wives scold their husbands, spouses argue with each other.

Even Sha're, who would have found some aspects of the Asarians to be the essence of let-it-all-hang-out egalitarianism, could hold her ground once the tent flap closed behind them. Shy in public, in private she had a glare and a scowl that had more than once put Daniel in his place when properly provoked.

Some things are universal. Wives have their own kind of power, no matter the circumstances.

So Daniel turns to Sam, head covered in that ridiculous red bandanna and says, "We should probably be married."

Sam lifts an eyebrow that would make Teal'c ever so proud and nods. "Whatever you think is best."

"Some of our behaviors are bound to strike the Asarians as being a bit odd, it might be easier to explain them if they think we're married," Daniel explains. Not that he needs to - Sam got it on the first try - but he wants to convince himself that he's not just coming up with this for any other reason besides the pragmatic.

When they get to the city, he intends to hold her hand - and when they find somewhere to sleep, he intends to sleep pressed close to her body. If someone doubts him, he intends to sweep Sam into the kind of kiss that only happens when you're either married or want to be.

Daniel already knows that he'll enjoy it. Already knows that he'll memorize the feel of her hand in his, and spend the night doing his best not to get noticeably aroused.

And he intends to cover his tracks with scholarly reasoning and practicality the entire way.

Daniel knows Sam well enough to know that her choices have been made. She might have loved Jack, might have loved Narim, might have loved Martouf - but the moment the choice between them and doing *this* came up, they stood no chance.

Sam is fearless in that way. She is not afraid to live alone, and she is not afraid to die alone if that's the cost of doing what she loves. In a way, she was married a long time ago and her wedding ring was made of naquadah. Everything else is a fling. Daniel doesn't begrudge her the security of that fact, either.

But there's a price to be paid for it, though. The price being that the closest Daniel will come to what he wants is *this* - pretending to be married on the odd offworld mission, odd moments of closeness trapped somewhere between friendship and something better.

What Daniel doesn't count on is the fact that the Asarians are not the gullible people that he thought they were. The find an inn they can barter their way into, but the innkeeper, a rotund man named Hesothenes - does not quite believe they are married.

"This is your wife?" he says. "Pah. That woman is no one's wife. You are thieves, running from something, I want no trouble."

"I know we may look odd to you, but we're foreigners here. Trust me, this is my wife," Daniel says, smiling and using his most diplomatic tone. "We were just married, not a day ago. We are taking this journey as part of our marriage rites."

Hesothenes eyes him. "What land did you say you were from again?"

"Tatooine," Daniel says, in his most flat, serious voice. Beside him, Sam doesn't even crack a smile - and Daniel wonders what he'll do for readily available lies when Star Wars catches on with the rest of the galaxy.

"I have never heard of this Tatooine."

"It's in a galaxy far, far away."

"And this is how a husband and wife become married on Tatooine?"

"Yes. A husband and wife journey to many planets, so that we can learn from what we observe how best to act when we're married."

Suddenly, Hesothenes' eyes are wide, and his face entirely dominated by the smile that wrinkles the fat folds of his face.

"Oh! Then come on in! You've come to just the right place. We can make a proper wife of your woman here. Tell me, what pleasures do women give their men on Tatooine, because here in Asaros, we have a particular delight."

From there, Daniel is treated to the best of Asarian hospitality, complete with an hour lecture on blowjobs, handjobs, and rear-entry positions best for producing male children.

Daniel remembers when this would have fascinated him, when he would have taken *notes*, extrapolating all sorts of information about what parts of Athenian culture they've retained and their sexual mores.

As it is, he's just sort of bored and worried that Sam is one more reference to "a woman's nature" away from showing Hesothenes the business end of her P-90 and giving that very firm, slightly scary speech about how her reproductive organs being on the inside doesn't mean she can't do whatever a man can do. The speech that had Jack, Kawalsky, and Feretti saluting in more ways than one.

"I think my wife is beginning to grow tired," Daniel says, as politely as possible. "Thank you so much for your help, Hesothenes."

"Ah, you say you are tired, but I see it in your eyes, Hans Olo, you're like a man with a new horse, you're desperate!" Hesothenes laughs. Again, Daniel smiles politely and stands up. He holds his hand out to Sam, who takes it without a second thought and follows him up the stairs. "That's right! Go try her out! May you get many sons by her!"

With those felicitations upon them, Daniel and Sam go up to their room and shut the door behind them. They look around and the beige stone walls are dominated by drawings of very graphic depictions of people in various stages of coitus.

"I think we got the honeymoon suite," Daniel says, with an embarrassed smile creeping across his face.

Sam is quick to take the bandanna off of her head and put down her weapon, then sit on the bed.

"What time did the Tok'ra say they'd be here tomorrow?" she asks.

Daniel smiles. "They said early in the morning, but who knows what that translates to in Tok'ra time. We should probably rest in case they manage to be on time. I'll take the floor."

And a sudden smile comes across her face. "Well, we are married."

For a moment, Daniel believes she's joking, so he smiles and even laughs. "I won't steal the covers if you won't."

"Who says we'll need covers?" Sam asks, and Daniel's heart stops beating at that second. He lets out one tiny, silent breath as his chest compresses and he sees the dangerous look in Sam's eyes.

Part of her wants her so badly to be kidding, and still he prays that she isn't.

"Sam?"

She responds by stripping off her jacket and then patting the bed beside her. The fear strikes Daniel that perhaps there's some alien technology at work, and that there's no scenario he can come up with that would entail her letting him do this voluntarily.

"What good's a honeymoon suite if we're not going to put it to good use."

Daniel stops, closes his eyes, and has no idea why he's about to say what he's going to say, but something south of his brain and north of his crotch has control right now and the idea of being just a fling for Sam *hurts*.

"This is a very, very bad idea, Sam."

"Everything we do is a bad idea, Daniel," she says, with a voice that's soft and a look that's still dangerous. "Just once, I'd like it if it was something I wanted."

"Sam -"

"If you don't want this say so, but I think you do. I think you want what I want."

Daniel is just about to be the ultimate gentlemen, about to tell her that he wants far more than she wants - far more than she can give. But then he opens his eyes and sees her sitting there on the bed, the breeze from the window rustling her hair, her hand resting on the bed and her cheeks flushed a little from the heat.

Again, his heart stops.

Daniel strips of his jacket as well and sits next to her on the bed and in a moment, for the night, becomes a husband to her.

She pulls him in like the tide, and though he can already taste the lonely nights on his tongue, the withdrawal he'll go through when he sleeps alone and only has the ghost of her nails raking down his back to keep him company - he does it anyway.

This is the way of the world. Wives have their own power, and tonight he is a husband put in his place. The place where he belongs, where she cradles him between her long legs and spurs him on with her heels.

  
\- THE END -


End file.
